Hallway Maintenance
by Putrid-Grenadilla
Summary: Inside the Matrix, down a long white hallway, in a small closet, some skeletons lived...
1. The Daily Grind

What was it about the 1st of the month that made Saffron so grouchy? Knowing her it would probably be something obvious that she would regret forgetting when the time came to it. It must be something big, she thought, taping a piece of micro pore onto the bloody slash across the back of her hand carefully. The entire maintenance staff seemed pretty anxious about something and most had been avoiding her all day. It was terribly difficult to repair program entries with someone without actually looking him or her in the eye.

 A single droplet of blood fell onto the first aid kit as she rolled up a long line of crepe to dress the wound with. It was only small but the lightest prods upon an artery with a screwdriver can cause quite a constant flow of blood. Hurriedly, she unravelled the crepe around her palm, restricting its movements ever so irritatingly but, as far as she was concerned, it was worth confining her hand to dressing rather than staining the shockingly white floor with a sickly red colour. It'd just be yet another job on your long list of 'things to do', she thought with a jaded sigh.

 "We've got another malfunction on 427," an equally weary voice crooned further down the hall. A waving hand caught Saffron's eye and she climbed to her feet and walked over to the aforementioned number '427' where a man crouched, examining the green door sceptically. He was barely visible in his white jumpsuit but, thankfully, his tanned flesh and bleached hair were enough to mark the outline of a human being amidst the jungle of pallor. He took a screwdriver from one of the many pockets of his jumpsuit and absently tightened on the door handle.

 "A broken door handle? Hardly cause for alarm, wouldn't you say?" Saffron scoffed, crouching down beside the startled man and placing a hand upon the door. It was the same as any other door in the hallway, except, of course, for the extremely large dents at its foot. It was also warm, a sure sign of problems, just like a rise in temperature for those suffering flu, which Saffron thought was actually quite endearing for a door. Her superiors had rejected Saffron's requests for sneezing doors however. She frowned at the evident scuffing marks imprinted in the centre of the dents and imagined the shiny black shoes that had been used to vandalize the door. She was seriously considering installing surveillance cameras in the hallway, catching the culprit a great interest to her and the majority of the maintenance crew, when the sound of the aforementioned black shoes could be suddenly be heard resounding down the hallway. The footsteps stopped somewhere behind her, chorused by the distinct sound of silence that could signal only one thing. 'Routine inspection'….


	2. Default chapter 2

"Agent Smith, 'S been a while, what brings_ you_ here?" Saffron crooned, placing as much contempt as humanly possible into the word 'you'. She had always been amazed of how much dissatisfaction an agent could show without actually showing any at all. It was probably all in the body language, her programs always bore a strong ability at expressing body language, it was probably due to the overall basis of their programming. She had preferred the use of Wolves in any agent program she'd been asked to create, their natural protective streak and social capabilities had seemed perfect in most cases although many seemed to focus more on the protective streak rather than the social part. Which is fair, I suppose, to think that that's what agents are for anyway.

 "You _know_ what brings me here, Miss Callahan" the agent answered malignly, yet maintaining an unruffled exterior. Saffron imagined him as a duck; staying cool and composed on the surface but paddling like heck underneath.

 "Where's Jones?" she asked, glancing around the hallway for a telltale sign of black. She herself was wearing a black jumpsuit, making her and the single agent the only source of darkness for miles of white corridor.

 "Jones is concerned with other matters, _I_ am here as a temporary replacement," Smith replied tonelessly.

 "Oh, but wasn't Jones only a temporary replacement for you or are we starting some sort of vicious circle here?" Smith inclined his head ever so slightly to signify his annoyance and Saffron refrained from pushing it anymore, it just wasn't worth scrubbing out the red stains should the conversation grow awry.

 "How is maintenance coming along?" the agent finally asked, crouching beside the dented door and examining the damage with his hands. Saffron knelt beside him, nodding towards her staff to continue with their work and gesturing for the bronzed employee to repair a door elsewhere.

 "As well as could be expected, considering the circumstances…" the agent turned towards Saffron, awaiting her protest. "Well, you _could _order your pals to quit assaulting the doors."

 "This hallway is often required at some stage in the pursuit of a resistant, if an agent damages anything during this time it is the maintenance crews' responsibility to repair it. Which, I'm afraid, brings me to the _real_ reason that I am here."

 "Using me again," Saffron nodded knowingly, Smith merely rolled his eyes behind his sunglasses.

 "Indeed."

 "So? What is my purpose _this_ time?" she sighed resignedly, standing up and wiping her grubby hands upon her trouser legs. Smith also rose and placed a hand upon the handle to door 427, drawing it back absently to reveal a room of black nothingness reaching far into the distance… or was it close? It was impossible to gauge the extensive length of the abyss and Smith wasn't sure he wanted to know. He slammed the door irately and turned to frown at Saffron.

 "What? I haven't had time to repair it yet what with you showing up," she said indignantly, reaching for the door handle opposite 427 and opening. "After you," she smiled sweetly, gesturing towards the room beyond the threshold.

 "No, please, ladies first," the sentient offered courteously.

 "Well, at least _you_ have some manners," Saffron snapped moodily, recalling her earliest efforts to create a friendly, nonchalant program. Needless to say it had been a complete and utter failure.

 "_My _programmer was, as you may well know, a perfectionist," Smith prompted proudly as he finally crossed the threshold and shut the door behind him. They now stood in a similar corridor with dreary beige walls. There was a large stainless steel elevator door at one end and a large window at the other with a green potted plant beneath it swaying in the breeze from a floor vent. Well, Saffron had, at long last, found a corridor that had an end. Although, _her_ corridor had a much more vibrant colour, beige was dull whereas white caused discomfort for the eyes. Saffron enjoyed _her _corridor wallpaper to make a statement, it screamed something along the lines of "I dare you to spin around in circles then step into a dark room". It was no fun, she, and several others, had tried it.

 "I see you've stuck with the same old sh – Smith gave her a harsh glare - design."

 "And?" he replied, his voice almost acidic, daring her to continue her previous sentence.

 "Nothing. I was just thinking how shitty it looks, but who cares right? Whoever sees the décor won't live long enough to tell the tale, eh?" she laughed, almost bounding over to the window to take in the view of the cityscape. She hadn't been outside for so long, the people walking to work below with their briefcases and takeout coffee didn't know how lucky they truly were. Still, the beat goes on and there were jobs to be done. Talk about your dead-end jobs, she thought sullenly. Perhaps slavery was a little harsh though, she enjoyed her work every now and again, especially when she got days off. She shook away the thought, Smith, despite his standoffish appearance, could probably sense her hunger for fresh, nonetheless artificial, air.

 "I was beginning to wonder when your pulse would finally slow down, pleased to see me?" he smirked arrogantly at the scowling programmer, finding it alarmingly difficult to stop grinning. It wasn't proper for an agent to grin but it wasn't necessarily frowned upon either, most would call it a deception to gain a human's trust. Smith himself thought this was pathetic, he didn't require a human's trust to beat out information, he simply took beat literally, which seemed to work. And yet despite this he couldn't help but smile ever so slightly at the silliest things these days, it was disturbing and he was quite aware of how ridiculous he looked whenever he did so. So he had taken to smirking instead, it was the evil villain's weapon of choice and he worked it well.

 "I don't know, I'm still pretty pissed at you for that vanishing act," she began to sulk childishly, barely able to stifle an enormous grin, she turned away to watch the cityscape some more.

 "Oh? Did we have plans that I am somehow unaware of?" he asked. It was hard to tell whether he was sincere or not. Jones had always been sincere; it was his Achilles heel some might say though Saffron thought it was actually quite engaging, whereas Brown was exasperatingly pedantic and extremely rude. Smith was an in-between with a sense of humour, albeit a terribly sadistic one.

 "No, but it _is_ pleasant to see you every now and again, I like to keep a track of my brood, 'specially the runt of the litter," she smirked, amused by the outraged expression upon Smith's face. It wasn't often that she got a rise out of her issues; the majority of them were specifically designed to be aloof and so virtually impregnable to her juvenile taunts. Smith had always been a hard nut to crack. She liked it that way; it was how he had been intended to be. Like her brother, she thought with a smile.

 "So, what's the problem? You don't usually take me from the hallway for no reason."

 "Perhaps I simply felt like it."

 "Right, what's up?" Saffron asked after a cautious gaze at Smith. He was hard to read, she'd give him that, but when it came to sentiment he was incredibly pathetic at it. As he should be.

 "You are required at a Clean-up Situation, you will attend for briefing immediately."

 "Oh I _will_, will I?"

 "Yes."

 "Supervisor?"

 "Naturally."

 "Fair enough, now?"

 "Yes, now," Smith grated irately. It was infuriating how little the human grasped such simple concepts.

 "Alright, lets get going then," Saffron said enthusiastically, tapping several times upon the elevator's call button and waiting patiently for the lift to arrive and the door to slide open with the customary ping. She stepped inside and pressed the button for down as Smith stepped in beside her and clasped his hands behind his back in a contented sort of way that she faintly recognised as a trait of her brother's. She had done quite a good job, she thought as the doors slid home and the elevator made its slow and steady way down towards the ground floor…

 In the days before the Matrix, in a time where chemical warfare was an abundant source of disease and deprivation, an ageing, white-haired professor had a dream. A dream of perfection in a bottle. A dream of a world free from all the troubles of the one he had been forced to raise three children alone it. His was a dream that brought him to the very edge of the living world and brought him back again. His own research had both sentenced him to death and given him the gift of life all in the space of three hours. In those dreadful three hours his mind had been torn apart by brain damage but the wise old professor had thought ahead. His mind, so perfect it was, was stored on the tiniest of chips and kept in his most secret of labs. His children had saved him with that chip, a thing that he had awarded them all in his will, and, in conjunction, had caused the entire downfall of the human race. Who knew?


End file.
